


Recidivism

by anonymousgratification



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Dialogue, Not Happy, Rage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 21:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17691689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousgratification/pseuds/anonymousgratification
Summary: Damian returns to the League; Grayson finds him after years.





	Recidivism

**Author's Note:**

> This is very self-indulgent. I got an idea about Damian returning to the League after a lot reeling through my head that might revert Damian to his past self: Grayson forgetting him, his father continuously ignoring, disappointing, and snubbing him, and his repeated falling out with his friends and family.
> 
> This is a concept in my head about Damian falling victim to his past and bloodlust, and becoming an extremist in his values. 
> 
> An important note: I do like moral ambiguity, and I do think everyone (characters I like to write) are not absolute in their ways and feelings.
> 
> I do think Damian's past is an important part of his character, and it's also important to heed the ways trauma sometimes does not affect someone until they are older. In this, I am going off the idea that once Damian gets older, he has a tougher time controlling those aspects, and has no one to help/guide him. He grows resentful and desperate, and finds solace (if you can call it that) in the life that he was promised; the one that will always be waiting for him. 
> 
> This is not me saying Damian would regress to his old ways, just playing around with some of the things canon seems to be implying. I love Damian; he's my angel baby. 
> 
> Summing up, this was mostly me getting some aggression out and I found Dick/Damian the perfect way to depict that. 
> 
> Thanks for reading. :]

“Damian.” Dick’s voice is strict, like he’s scolding him. He watches the precise flow of Damian’s movements. If Damian startles at his voice, his presence, he does not show it.

Damian does falter, just for a moment, his eyes widening, his head spinning— but he does not allow himself to fall victim to those weaknesses.

Dick moves forward, valiant in this room full of people that could kill him, that would given the command. He reaches out to touch Damian, and suddenly everyones attention is on him, weapons pointed in his direction. He stares at the back of Damian’s head, the hair resting there, still wanting to reach out regardless of the situation.

Damian turns around slowly, calculated. Damian wants to muster out _kill him_ ; leave Grayson confused as he dies, right in front of him, unaware of what was said. Damian’s eyes are on Grayson’s, unrelenting; the fire that burns all around them.

The people in the room look to Damian, for permission, for guidance. Damian stares at him for what feels like forever, then turns to the room, eyes going to the weapons pointed at Dick.

“Leave him,” he commands, and everyone obeys. “Leave us.” Everyone proceeds to bow in front of him, some of them mumbling out what Dick assumes is praise or accordance. He doesn’t know what Damian said, or what they did; speaking in a language he’s unacquainted with. He’s shocked at the display; even though it’s expected, it’s jarring; these people bowing to Damian.

Damian walks away from him and Dick’s eyes are on the muscles of his back, the new scars he doesn’t recognize. Damian’s arms are wrapped, hands to forearms. He’s full of ferocity, even in the way he walks. Dick’s vision roams to a tattoo, or perhaps a symbol, on Damian’s shoulder blade. It’s of something, but he isn’t sure what. The ink is red; blood painting golden skin.

Damian’s eyes are on him again. “How did you find me?” Voice curt, words sharp as the greens of his eyes. Dick doesn’t answer, just stares, mystified.

“Speak now,” Damian threatens, the tip of his blade parallel to Dick’s throat. “Or lose the option to.”

Dick continues to gape. Those are Damians’s eyes in front of him; jade irises and a keenness one couldn’t replicate. It’s Damian’s mouth and his voice— but this person in front of him— this person is not Damian Wayne. This person is completely foreign.

Dick tries to shrug away, stepping back, but Damian steps forward, following him, recalcitrant. It’s not sneering nor empty, the way it used to be, but vehement; this loathing.

“I followed the trail,” Dick sounds acrimonious, though he’s sure he's being less harsh than Damian.

“Trail?” Damian raises an eyebrow, unconvinced. Weapon still pointed, face still serious.

“The trail of death.” Dick leans forward, thinking Damian might pull away, but he doesn’t. Damian pushes further, the blade brushing his skin. Dick is close to losing his composure, if he already hasn’t. He’s angry, so angry, and he doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know who to aim it toward. “The trail of devastation.” Dick keeps talking, sharpness on his throat, feeling it through his words. “Of all the conclusions I tried to land on, this one had to be the most sensible. The annihilation following you. The slaughter. I thought you were smarter than this.”

Damian increases pressure on the blade, a trail of blood slowly dribbling out the shallow cut. “And you assume I care what you think?” Damian finds that he really doesn’t, and somehow that’s more frightening than the alternative. “You always were a fool. I thought  _you_  were smarter than this,” Damian chides, repeating the words back to him.

Dick’s on his back abruptly. _When did Damian move? When did he get his hands on him?_  Before he can think, Damians’s spun him around so Dick’s on his stomach, one of his hands twisted behind him in Damian’s grasp, the other pinned under Damian’s knee.

“Why are you here?” Dick turns his head to stare back at him. Damian’s still gripping his knife in his other hand, staring at him like he wants to slice him open. His voice hasn’t lost any of the roughness he started with, if anything he’s becoming worse. Dick becomes unnerved at Damian’s unconcealed bloodlust. He never thought Damian would revert to this; never thought he could become this. He wants to throw up.

“Why else? I just wanted to see if it was true,” Dick jeers, but he’s not lying. He needed to see. He  _had to_ , with his own eyes, to believe it true.

“Pathetic excuse.” Damian’s eyes are as vicious as his tongue. He slides the blade against Dick’s cheek, marveling at the color his blood, seeping to the surface. “Unless you came to die, I have no need for you here.” Dick thrashes, wanting to escape as he hears the seething way Damian speaks; the way he means it.

“Leave now and I’ll show mercy.” Damian hates himself for saying it, but he still can’t bring himself to do this,  _not yet_. Not unless he has to.

“Mercy? Jesus, Damian. What the fuck happened to you?”

“You seem to be confusing me with someone else.” Damian pierces the ground directly in front of Dick, just centimeters from his face. 

“You knew me when I was a child. I am not any longer. The only reason I will spare you is because of this fact.” Damian rotates the knife and pulls it from the ground, standing. He sheaths the weapon somewhere on his person as Dick stands up directly in front of him. He tries determine where exactly Damian placed it.

“Dami,” Dick lets it slip, knowing he’s mistaken. He just… Fuck. He’s completely at a loss here.

“You cannot refer to me however you please.” Damian pauses, looking like he’s swishing something around in his mind. “We do not know each other anymore.”

“You’re wrong. I know you.” Damian looks even more enraged, if possible. “I love you.”

Damian tuts, completely disregarding him. “No one knows me.” Damian looks into his eyes, swimming with certainty. “No one loves me,” he finishes, but the words aren’t sad, just prideful, just irrefutable.

“I do.”

“Do whatever you please.” Damian dismisses his claims. Damian _should_ leave, walk away before this becomes something he was hoping to die without having to confront. Yet he speaks again, wanting to explain, even though he shouldn’t. Even though he doesn’t have to. “I am not… as I once was.”

“I don’t believe that. I know who you were— who you are— in your heart. I know this isn’t you. I know that there’s a part of you that hates yourself for what you’re doing.”

Damian grits his teeth, snarling his words. “The only person I hate is you. I hate  _you._ So fucking much.” Dick knows he means it. “I’ve never hated anything this much. Nothing else in my entire life.” Damian’s close to him now, intimidating, challenging, biting. “I want to kill you right now. I  _could,_ ” he highlights. “I  _could_  have had them do it,” Damian reminds him, as if he’d forgotten.

“But _I_ want the satisfaction. I want to feel it as your heart stops beating. I want to watch as your face grows lifeless and your eyes shift to dead. I want to see your blood stain the floor and spit on it.” Dick knows he should feel angry or horrified, but he feels extremely sad instead. Damian.  _His Damian_  has become this. Has become everything he promised he wouldn’t. Has become everything he shouldn’t have. Maybe it is his fault. Maybe Damian’s hate is accurate.

Damians’s fuming, can’t stop. “Maybe I should revoke my generosity. It’s embarrassing I even considered sparing your useless life.”

“Damian,” Dick says his name again, maybe to humanize him.

“Grayson,” Damian follows, saying his name for the first time. “You’re nothing.” Damian can’t stop his fulminating; opposing Dick’s very existence.

“You’re nothing,” Dick repeats back to him, watching Damian’s eyes grow increasingly crazed. “You know what I see when I look at you now? That stupid, naive 10 year old I met all those years ago. Broken. Brainwashed.” He considers his last words carefully. “Nothing but an inculcated tool.”

“You  _don’t_  know me,” Damian raises his voice, catching himself feeling close to desperate, though it’s muffled. “You never did.”

“You know that’s a lie as much as I do.”

“You forgot! You fucking forgot!” Damian yells, then stops, centering his voice. “You didn’t remember me.” Dick feels nauseous again, something becoming extremely clear to him instantly. Damian’s… he’s…

Damian was left behind. Grayson left Damian behind, indirectly rejecting and replacing him. Grayson who said he never would. Grayson who promised. Grayson who  _swore_.

Dick knows how much that means, to someone like Damian.

“I waited,” Damian adds, losing his self-restraint. He wants to tell Grayson everything; but he cannot. The Damian Grayson knows does not exist anymore. And it is an amelioration.

Damian returns to himself, ignoring—avoiding— detaching his weakness.

“Leave.” Damian’s voice is gruff and raw, somehow worse than his earlier yelling.

“Damian, we need to—”

“We don’t  _need_  to do anything. There is no we.”

“I’m sorry,” is all Dick says. “I’m sorry I forgot about you.” Damian’s face contorts into something recognizable, no longer the face covering what’s really there, what Dick believes is still there. Damian fixes himself as quickly as he let himself waver.

“It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. I am not weak anymore. I am not deficient. I am not timid and emotional, as I once was.” Damian continues, even though Dick doesn’t want to hear it. He would rather hear anything in place of Damian listing his faults— what he thinks his faults were. “I am no longer defective. Disappointing. Insufficient.”

“I miss you.” Dick can’t do anything but confess, spouting admissions. “All the time,” he adds.

“I don’t.” Damian is certain still, but less and less. “I never did.” He turns away; it’s dejected. Dick’s eyes trace the patterns on Damian’s skin.

“I never wanted to see you again,” Damian shares, and it almost feels intimate. Dick wonders why he reveals this. Is it guilt? Spite? Anger? Abhorrence?

Dick reaches for his shoulder, maybe instinct, maybe habit; even after all this time. Damian shies away, quickly turning around and evading the contact. Dick’s mind is laced with questions. How did Damian know he was coming? When did he get  _this_  fast? He can’t keep up with anything.

Damian grabs Dick’s shirt, yanking at the collar. He pushes him up against the wall. “Don’t touch me. Don’t  _ever_  touch me.” Damian clenches his hands, and Dick finds his threats both endearing and disheartening.

“Don’t come near me again. I mean it.” Damian pushes off, stepping back and moving deeper into the room. His eyes are on Dick, waiting for his move.

“Damian, please,” Dick resorts to pleading. 

Damian turns to the side, and Dick stares at his profile. Damian bites on his tongue, sliding it around his teeth. He runs a hand back through his hair. “I hate you,” he mumbles like a promise, like a regret.

Damian moves, urgent, rapidly, body veering.

An object flies by Dick’s face, imbedding itself in the wall next to him. Damian looks satisfied at Dick’s shock; the alarm in his eyes.

“Get out.” When Dick stays motionless, Damian speaks again. “I did not miss by mistake. Next time, I will not be so forgiving.”

Dick huffs, staring into Damian’s eyes, despondent. He exits the room, gazing back only to find Damian’s eyes focused on where his body was, instead of where it is now.

Damian throws another knife and it imbeds itself in the wall, the space where Grayson was; between Grayson’s eyes.

“Get out,” Damian repeats, this time in Arabic.  _Get out of me._

Damian thought he rid himself of this— Grayson’s hold on him. Grayson’s in his fucking veins, like his blood flows just for him, like his heart beats just for him. The look in his eyes, the way his voice fractured—

Damian throws another knife, this time where Grayson’s heart was. He growls, maybe holding back a sob, maybe holding back a louder growl.

Damian ignores the urge to wince, pledging to himself inside his head.

_If I see Grayson again, I will have his head._


End file.
